Dangerous National Private School Voucher Program Included in House Budget Legislation
This week the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways & Means Committee approved a bill that includes a wasteful and dangerous private school voucher scheme for the entire nation, even in states where voters have soundly rejected them and elected officials have rightly deemed them a threat to their public schools and students. The legislation containing the voucher program is currently making its way through the House, and the Senate will consider similar legislation as part of the budget reconciliation process.
The voucher program in the House bill is based on the previously introduced Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA). A national private school voucher program would never pass Congress on its own, and that’s why its proponents have so aggressively pushed it in the reconciliation bill.
The voucher scheme functions as a tax shelter that would provide $5 billion per year for four years in dollar-for-dollar tax credits for individuals who contribute to organizations that distribute vouchers. The only criterion for receiving a voucher is a high family income limit (300% of median gross income in a particular area!). Voucher recipients are not required to ever have attended public schools.
There is ample and mounting evidence from state voucher programs that they harm students and undermine the public education system that serves 90% of children across the country. Voucher students experience worse academic outcomes than their public school peers and forfeit key civil and disability rights. Voucher programs drain money from already under-resourced public schools, waste taxpayer dollars through fraud and abuse, and largely provide subsidies to wealthy families who have already chosen and are paying for private education. There is no reason a federal voucher scheme would be any less devastating.
“This voucher program is a shameful attempt to benefit the wealthy that would jeopardize students’ academic opportunities and civil rights,” said Jessica Levin, Litigation Director at Education Law Center and Director of ELC’s Public Funds Public Schools campaign. “Proponents know that shoving this program into a federal budget bill is the only way they can attempt to force vouchers into numerous states whose legislatures would never enact them and whose voters would never support them.”
Visit the PFPS Research page for an extensive catalogue of research about the negative effects of vouchers on academic outcomes, civil rights, school integration, public school funding, and more. Access webinars, fact sheets, and other resources on the PFPS Advocacy page and Interactive Tools page. PFPS is a national campaign directed by Education Law Center.
For more information and to take action against the proposed federal voucher scheme visit this National Coalition for Public Education website.
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Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Director of Policy, Strategic Partnerships and Communications
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x240